In the recent years, it seems that the debate on Freedom of Speech never stopped. The infamous “Right to Bigotry” and the right-wing consistently slamming opposite media and other people who don’t agree with them as “suppressing their rights to freedom of speech” have turned our society into nothing but a school yard bully ground.
Among some of the most cited support is someone’s religious freedom, especially Christianity being threatened by, for example the existence of other faiths, such as Islam, or the existence of people who are attracted to other people of the same gender. These people fought for their rights to condemn publicly and to uphold their bigotry against people they don’t like. These kinds of behaviours were extended into the highest levels of our society, just looking at the Trump mess in the States, and locally, our Australian Parliament. These people time and time again presented themselves as victims but at the same time continuously slinging mud to their victims whom they claimed to be oppressing their freedom.
But truly, what exactly is freedom nowadays in our society?
Being raised in the Christian faith I never doubt one’s freedom to express his or her views. But also because of my academic training and professional training, I believe in speeches based on facts. And this is the side of things that really troubled me whenever I read news articles about certain certain personality moaned over his / her loss of freedom of speech because of political correctness, and they are being cast as villains of the society.
Let us break this down:
Personally, as a responsible member of the society, I do not believe that freedom of speech automatically gives people hall passes to attack others irrationally simply because they “believe” in something. For example, in Australia some Ministers such as Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott continuously advocate things that have no statistical support, such as migrants are destroying the Australian economy (statistics showed, all of their Coalition seats’ economic growth were contributed by migrants), White farmers in South Africa were being persecuted (statistics showed they were not being killed more than Black South Africans) and Melbourne is overrun by Muslim gangs and people were afraid to go out (statistics showed there was no such trace and people of Melbourne refuted the claim). My question is, is it that our society has evolved, or in my opinion, devolved into a state that when you are in a position of power, you can just tell any lies and force other people to believe you? The so called popular politics certainly put people like Donald Trump into the White House and we can see how many lies where thrown out from the White House since then, from the number of attendees at the ceremony to their infamous alternative facts since then.
The recent saga with rugby player Israel Folau’s condemning gay people to Hell and Greg Hunt challenges Patricia Karvelas over the Young Liberals’ right to freedom of speech by proposing debate allowing gay-conversion therapy and remove gender fluidity in our legal system, are great exhibits of freedom of speech, or simply freedom only exist when it fits them. Israel Folau’s certainly has his right to what he believes, but does he hold the right to attack others because of his belief? That is a question people need to ask. If Christians think Muslim has no right to criticise Christians, why do they think they have the rights to attack other, and argue that this is their rights to freedom of speech and religion? Yes it is a Christian’s duty to spread the Gospel, but I personally do not believe in condemnation under the disguise of personal freedom will do any good to the society or to the non-believers. There is a reason the Gospel was once known as the Good News, but with behaviours of “Christians” like Israel Folau, I don’t know what value it would add to the faith and how “good” the “news” would be. No wonder the number of Christians has been dwindling. As for Greg Hunt’s high horse speech about freedom of speech, I personally do not understand how he understands freedom of speech when your speech’s sole purpose is to remove other people’s freedom, including who they can love and who they want to be, which I supposed are basic freedoms in our society. When one so called right to freedom is infringing on another’s right to freedom, should it still be exercised within our modern society?
I am sure because of my disagreement with these people, I will be quickly labelled as a leftie, but I am not, as I had time and time again spoke up against a lot of so called “lefty-principles”. What I am looking for is a responsible society that does not build its foundation on popularist sentiments but facts and correct information. The likes of Fox News throwing out lies, e.g. against victims and survivors of the Florida High School Shooting, when condemned, counter attacked by saying their rights to freedom of speech is being threatened while they tried to put down all other views different to them in the society, is not an act or realisation to freedom of speech. They are acts of tyranny disguise as exercising their rights to freedom of speech. And unfortunately, a lot of people, including ministers, officials or other people of social status are jumping on to this kind of band wagon. Whenever someone disagreed with them, they put them down in the name of freedom of speech, without actually exposing themselves as the people who are putting down freedom of speech itself.
It saddens me that our society has come to this and seemed to have learnt nothing from history. I just have a fool’s hope that eventually this rough phase of mankind will pass and ration and kindness will return to our society.
